The Kabul Incident: A Weir Codex Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

there was nothing quite like the surge of adrenaline he got from being out live in the field with its heat and mosquitoes. It got his heart pumping, his blood racing, and, he was almost ashamed to admit, things were even stirring down below.
    Perhaps, if things went well Brazier would be able to hook up with the cute Air Force flight commander who had accompanied the Project Hardwired team on the flight over from Germany. They’d had a couple of nice moments between them during their time in the air and the young engineer was pretty sure he could pick things up right where he left off.
    An irritatingly shrill hiss snapped Brazier’s attention back to the work at hand and, sadly, knocked the inspired muscle in his pants back down to six o’clock from noon.
    “No time for love, Doctor Jones,” thought Brazier as he peeked over his shoulder into the darkness in an attempt to locate his counterpart. She was out there, hunkered down in a foxhole just like he was, sitting back and waiting with Gauss while Cestus went in to do the government’s dirty work. The pair of cyborgs had been out on four joint missions in the past 3 months, all with a high success rating. To the eternal annoyance of the chrome-armed Gauss, his role had transitioned to one consisting almost completely of support, dropping his actual combat time down to zero. For a hardened killer like Designate Gauss, it had been a hard pill to swallow. Still, pondered Brazier as he requested Talborg to repeat her transmission, at least ‘Magnet Boy’ could share in the spoils of having the best mission record in the department.
    “I said, ‘Designate Cestus is in play.’ Switch to night vision and watch point…in other words, pay attention, Scotty-boy,” said Talborg with as much professional and personal disdain as she could muster.
    With the touch of a button on the side of his helmet’s visor, the world went green for Brazier. The sights popping up through his equipment’s low-light infra-red mode had become familiar through the remote viewing Brazier’s team had done for much of the previous nine months. Of course, having to actively move his head and zoom in-and-out on his own were a bit trickier than following along with the playback of a field-drone’s camera systems…especially when he had to keep up with the constantly moving and dodging form of Cestus as the super-soldier worked his way up and over the twelve-foot high bare concrete walls of the target facilities to gain entry to the courtyard they protected.
    “Wow,” was the extent of the eloquence Brazier could muster when he saw the first pair of Afghan terrorists fall to the ten-inch blades that slid quickly from housings deep within the forearms of Cestus. Two backhanded swipes left a pair of heads rolling away from twitching corpses.
    “Your boy is on fire,” commented Private Grundy with a grin that split his long face from ear to ear.
    “I want two squads of six. Davis, Purcell, Freeman, Schmidt, and DeVito, you’re with me. The rest of you are team two. Hochberg and Grundy, keep us covered from Rally One,” said Height, prepping his gear and getting ready to march across the moonlit plain to where Cestus had already begun his killing.
    Grace scowled at Height’s order. “And us?”
    “Agent Talborg, you, Designate Gauss, and your men remain here with Grundy and Hochberg.” The two marine snipers dropped to the ground a few feet from the civilians, already prepping their .50 caliber DARPA EXACTO rifles. “We should have the target secured and ready for you in less than ten. Be ready.”
    Brazier stepped past Gauss and the two members of Rho-Unit, doing his best to completely ignore the blistering look Talborg kept shooting his way as he did, and asked, “Where do I set up, Sergeant? Should I monitor the progress of Designate Cestus from the rally point?”
    The large head of Height gave one shake before training it’s gaze onto the engineer.
    “Best place for you is with my